Ep. 33 Festies Recap: Portola Music Festival 2025 + Bob Moses Interview

Portola Music Festival took over San Francisco, and Sunny and Clark were there with press passes. We conducted our first-ever artist interview with Bob Moses, saw Christina Aguilera, and danced through sets from DJs all weekend. Here’s the recap.

Transcript

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Cold Open: Lilith Fair and Stagecoach

Sunny 0:00

Hey Vanessa.

Vanessa 0:01

Yeah Sunny?

Sunny 0:02

What do you call two best friends that love music festivals?

Vanessa 0:06

Hmm. I gues s you'd call them Festies.

Clark 0:29

Music. Festivals. Friendship. Festies.

Vanessa 0:40

Welcome to another episode, Festies.

Clark 0:44

Hey.

Sunny 0:44

We're here.

Vanessa 0:47

We have Clark back on the mic because these two went to Portola without me. Womp womp.

Sunny 0:52

Yay I mean not yay.

Clark 0:52

I'm sorry.

Vanessa 0:54

I feel like everyone's gonna be like, Vanessa doesn't even like music festivals because she doesn't even go to any of them.

Sunny 1:00

You've gone to different ones, though.

Vanessa 1:01

No, I know. We're always going to different ones, and we have yet to go to one big one together.

Clark 1:07

Since the podcast started.

Sunny 1:11

Not for long, though. I know. Austin City Limits, so close.

Vanessa 1:16

Our wristbands just came in this week, so it's getting real.

Sunny 1:19

Yes. Oh, yeah. Did yours come in?

Vanessa 1:20

Yes. When we got these tickets, I didn't know where we would be living.

Sunny 1:24

Yeah.

Vanessa 1:25

So I had them sent to my mom's house and she called me the other day. She's like, You got a package. I can feel a wristband. I was like, why are you feeling it? She's like, What do you mean? She's like, I had to grab it.

Sunny 1:34

Oh no.

Vanessa 1:35

She's like, Don't tell me it's another music festival. I was like, Yeah.

Clark 1:37

She's like, I got hands all over it, clamping at.

Vanessa 1:40

That's exactly what she did. Did yours come with the lanyard and the little

Sunny 1:43

No.

Vanessa 1:44

What? Mine came with like a little square laminated thing and lanyard that has the festival lineup on the back.

Sunny 1:54

What if I just threw it away and didn't notice it in there?

Vanessa 1:57

You would have noticed it. Honestly, like a couple months ago, I was like, I'm already exhausted thinking about Austin City Limits.

Sunny 2:02

No.

Vanessa 2:03

But now I'm so excited. We've been watching the TikTok videos and the YouTube videos, and it seems really fun.

Clark 2:08

I was just telling Sunny, I got an ad for, I don't know if you've seen it, there's a documentary that's gonna come out about Lilith Fair, which is this all women musician touring festival that happened in like 1996, 97, 98.

Vanessa 2:23

Oh wow.

Clark 2:24

And it was put on by uh Sarah McLaughlin.

Vanessa 2:27

Oh what?

Clark 2:27

And it ended up being like one of the top touring festivals of that decade.

Vanessa 2:32

Wow.

Clark 2:32

Basically.

Vanessa 2:33

That's awesome.

Sunny 2:34

Never heard of it. Are they bringing it back or something?

Clark 2:36

Uh no, there's a documentary. And then I was like looking up the lineup and like the second year, Sarah McLaughlin, Bonnie Raitt, Diana Krall, Emmy Lou Harris, Erykah Badu, uh, Missy Elliott,

Vanessa 2:49

wow,

Vanessa 2:50

Queen Latifa, Sheryl Crow, Sinead O'Connor. It's just so stacked with these female artists. Yeah, I was just reading the lineup. I'm like, what the hell? Like, this is how have we never talked about this? So maybe that would be cool that for us to talk about it some other time. Yeah, let's watch that for sure when it comes out. Last thing before we jump into Portola, the Stagecoach lineup came out today.

Clark 3:13

Oh, yeah.

Vanessa 3:13

Like a few hours ago, the day we're recording this, and it's so good. I think Ed and I both were like, we're not going back to Stagecoach, just because overall we were like, but the headliners are Cody Johnson, Lainey Wilson, who's my favorite female country artist, Post Malone, who's done a great transition into country lately, Brooks and Dunn, dude. Hootie and the blowfish.

Sunny 3:34

Yeah.

Clark 3:34

Yeah, yeah. I saw that in another one.

Vanessa 3:36

I only wanna be with you. Journey, Riley Green, who's big right now, Little Big Town, Teddy Swims, and then Diplo, who's always there, Pitbull. It's crazy.

Clark 3:48

Yeah, yeah, I saw that in the world.

Vanessa 3:49

And Ludacris.

Sunny 3:51

Yeah.

Vanessa 3:51

And so many more. Ella Langley. Oh my gosh, Nate Smith, Treaty Oak Revival, like Third Eye Blind.

Clark 3:58

Yeah. Such a good

Vanessa 4:00

so many good ones.

Clark 4:01

Such a good mixture of stuff.

Vanessa 4:03

Yeah. I texted it to Sunny. She goes, To the untrained eye, that looks like a really good lineup. Like, it is a really good lineup.

Sunny 4:09

We should have known that the Stagecoach one would be coming out soon since they just dropped Coachella. Now that I think about it.

Vanessa 4:14

Yeah, I know. I thought the same thing. I was like, oh, duh but Stagecoach usually does drop their lineup this early.

Sunny 4:22

Oh, they do?

Vanessa 4:22

Yeah. Coachella does n't.

Clark 4:24

Wow. That's awesome.

Sunny 4:25

PSA, both weekends of Coachella are sold out.

Vanessa 4:28

That's crazy. So that means they're not even gonna release anymore?

Sunny 4:31

I have no idea.

Vanessa 4:32

That's insane. I saw that and I was like, wait, what do you mean sold out? Like, what do you mean?

Sunny 4:36

Yeah.

Vanessa 4:37

What does sold out mean?

Sunny 4:38

Yeah.

Vanessa 4:39

Because

Coachella sellout shock

Vanessa 4:40

normally they'll say like pre-sale passes sold out. They were like 2026 passes sold out. It was like what? What? We're gonna have to

Sunny 4:49

Festies?

Vanessa 4:50

Do the Yes, Festies, get us in, please. Um, yeah, either try a way in through media or go the scalp the what is it called? Scalpers.

Sunny 5:01

Yeah, pay triple.

Clark 5:03

It's funny too, because it's like for how much people gripe about stuff with Coachella. I'm like, well, it's sold out like nothing.

Vanessa 5:10

So well, it was such a good lineup too.

Clark 5:12

Yeah, it was. It was just absolutely stacked.

Sunny 5:15

Okay.

What Portola is and why it’s unique

Sunny 5:16

But as much as I could keep talking about Coachella, we have a Portola music festival to talk about.

Clark 5:24

Yeah.

Sunny 5:25

Which is a festival in San Francisco on Pier 80.

Clark 5:29

Yep.

Sunny 5:29

So it's got like the shipyard in the back and this like uh industrial uh backdrop that's pretty unique.

Clark 5:35

Yeah, I wasn't expecting to be so interested in just the setting. It's so such a cool visual festival in the sense of it's kind of like owed to OG rave culture where it's warehouses and industrial underground stuff.

Vanessa 5:53

Yeah,

Clark 5:54

that you're on this shipyard, so you have a cargo ship right behind the stage,

Vanessa 5:59

yeah,

Clark 5:59

and you have the cranes that move the cargo containers .

Vanessa 6:01

I never thought about it that way, but yeah, that 's cool.

Clark 6:04

And and then the weather was incredible for both days. Beautiful sunset glow with the cranes and stuff is so cool.

Vanessa 6:13

I love that that's in like their logo. The cranes just like in their logo. Did you know that it's named after a Portola festival and Portola Road race? these are events that were put on uh in 1909 to demonstrate the recovery of the 1906 earthquake.

Sunny 6:30

No,

Vanessa 6:32

that's what Wikipedia says. I don't know if that's true, but

Clark 6:35

wait, no, I saw photos of that and like a postcard of that because when we were in Grass Valley with Aaron, we went to an antique shop and Aaron was looking through antique postcards and stuff, and there were some of Portola

Vanessa 6:48

Festival

Clark 6:49

Festival

Vanessa 6:50

yeah

Clark 6:50

from that time period. And yeah, I didn't make that good. You that when you brought that up, I was like, oh yeah, Aaron literally has

Vanessa 6:57

light bulb,

Clark 6:58

yeah. That's so cool, yeah. And it was so clear. I was taking videos and I could see the city skyline. Anyone not from the bay, if you were at Portola, you got some sick weather.

Sunny 7:11

Yeah, yeah. You got lucky.

Vanessa 7:13

Oh, yeah, that you could even see it with Karl's not in the way.

Clark 7:16

Yeah, you could you could see the top of one of the bridges.

Sunny 7:19

You got perfect weather. It was cold last year

Vanessa 7:20

since you went last year. How uh was your first impressions of it this year compared to last year? Was it pretty similar?

Sunny 7:27

Yeah, it was pretty similar, but I mean different in a sense that like my perspective was different because last year Festies was like a couple weeks old, like barely even an idea. So last year I was like a fan with a microphone walking around. This time it felt like we were like media with a mission since we were there as official media and had better equipment. But yeah, the festival was uh pretty similar, it wasn't as crowded. I'm not complaining about there being less people.

Vanessa 7:55

maybe that's why we got in through media.

Sunny 7:57

Yeah, yeah,

Vanessa 7:58

but we'll take it. Who'd you guys see on Saturday?

Clark 8:01

So Saturday we saw 1 tbsp, Arc de Soleil, a bit of Confidence Man, Zack Fox, Magdalena Bay, Bob Moses, Dabeull,

Media access vs last year’s vibe

Clark 8:15

Christina Aguilera, a bit of the Despacio tent, L C D sound system, and a smidge of the Chemical Brothers. Oh, and Mal P. So a smorgish board.

Vanessa 8:28

You guys saw Daboule, which was on our fake Festies l ineup.

Sunny 8:32

Yes, thanks to RJ and Penny.

Clark 8:34

And who did we see them with? RJ and Penny.

Vanessa 8:37

Awesome. I saw that. That looks so fun.

Sunny 8:39

Yes, it was so fun.

Clark 8:41

Yeah,

Sunny 8:41

funky, soulful, groovy, just like all the stuff.

Vanessa 8:44

All the stuff you love.

Sunny 8:45

We love, yeah. He uh played a keytar and was just so charismatic.

Clark 8:51

Yeah, yeah, seriously. He just had the you know, one of those artists that just like

Vanessa 8:55

stage presence,

Clark 8:55

just grabs you, yeah.

Sunny 8:57

Right after Dabeull, we ran over to Christian Aguilera,

Saturday sets and Christina’s Aguilera's Y2K revival

Sunny 9:01

who was just a powerhouse, she blew us away.

Clark 9:03

Yeah,

Sunny 9:04

I was like lost for words.

Clark 9:06

Yeah, seriously. Something I noticed on Saturday with the fashion, it definitely felt like a lot of people were leaning into the hard Y2K and

Vanessa 9:15

Christina style.

Clark 9:16

Mm-hmm, like the edgy style that she had in that era.

Vanessa 9:20

Low-rise jeans and yeah,

Clark 9:21

exactly, exactly. Like low rise jeans and like crop tops and chrome jewelry, big old sunglasses and stuff, like a lot of that. And she totally had reference to that in her outfit. Like her, oh, her microphone had this giant metal chrome X on the outside of it. And I was like, you could just take somebody out with that, you just bop somebody with that. It's crazy. That and she had like her uh she had chaps on, like it famous chaps.

Sunny 9:52

She looked good.

Clark 9:52

She looked great.

Sunny 9:53

I just kept thinking, like, what a pro. It was a 40-minute set, but it was a powerful 40-minute set.

Vanessa 10:00

It looked like every video I've seen online, like every different song looks like it was like the last song she was finished. Yeah, going all out, you know. Ed would say, Well, yeah, she's been practicing for 20 years.

Sunny 10:11

25,

Vanessa 10:12

25 years,

Sunny 10:13

as she mentioned.

Vanessa 10:14

T hat's what 10,000 plus hours looks like right there.

Clark 10:17

Dude, straight up. Started when she was a kid.

Sunny 10:20

Yeah. Yeah, Christina Aguilera just really elevated the festival. They even had a Christina Aguilera themed bar, which was called Dirrty Bar, after her song Dirrty with two R's that was kind of hidden. Um, and it was sweet. It was kind of off to the side. Had a little like neon sign, like dirty bar, and you walked in, it was a little like tunnel, and then opened up and it was just like Christina decked out. Oh, it was so sweet.

Clark 10:46

Yeah, it was like that, and their little mascot, the little raccoon was part of it too, because they have like a mascot of a of a raccoon.

Vanessa 10:54

Portola?

Clark 10:54

Yeah.

Sunny 10:54

Yeah.

Clark 10:55

I want to shout out the cocktails that we got in the dirrty bar because both the cocktails I had were super delicious and creative cocktails, like the you'd get at a really high-end place and reasonably priced for a festival.

Sunny 11:11

Yeah.

Vanessa 11:12

The most exciting part of the Saturday, which gave me the most FOMO, tell me all about it.

Sunny 11:18

Oh, yes, we interviewed Bob Moses.

The hidden Dirrty Bar and cocktails

Vanessa 11:20

Woo! That is a Festies first. That's a milestone for us. We are now interviewing artists. Okay. Check us out.

Sunny 11:29

Check us out.

Clark 11:30

It was it was super cool.

Vanessa 11:31

That is so crazy.

Clark 11:32

It felt like an out-of-body experience. I'm sure even more for Sunny since Sunny was asking them the questions.

Sunny 11:38

Yeah.

Clark 11:38

The manager like came around the corner from the behind backstage to where the media area was. He like looks around for a second and he like sees us because we have our festies hats on and he's like, Oh, hey, nice to meet you. And we're like, oh hey, and we did that. And he's like, Yeah, the guy's just right around the corner.

Sunny 11:54

I blacked out. I have no idea what happened.

Clark 11:55

And then and then they and then Bob Moses appeared. We're like, whoa. Hey.

Vanessa 12:00

Oh my god.

Sunny 12:01

And immediately they were so nice.

Vanessa 12:03

I could tell by just that one little clip you posted in the because I wasn't allowed to look at the video of the interview till today. So I didn't. But you one of you uploaded a little clip of you guys exchanging a bracelet or something. It was like 10 seconds. I could just tell that they were so nice in those 10 seconds. He was like,

Milestone: our first artist interview

Vanessa 12:18

Oh shit, I forgot. I forgot the plur, like the whatever it was. I was like, Oh, he they seem so nice.

Clark 12:23

They were absolute gems.

Sunny 12:25

Yeah, immediately put us at ease. But Vanessa has not watched the interview. I've only heard snippets of it because it makes me cringe. It's like impossi what were you saying, Vanessa? Like imposter syndrome. Like, I feel like I'm trying

Vanessa 12:38

too hard?

Sunny 12:39

Too hard. Yeah.

Vanessa 12:40

I'm sure you sound fine. It's just it's the first time that we do something like this.

Sunny 12:44

So I did pretty good up until the very end. My mind just blanked. Clark had to jump in and save me. Thank goodness you did. Thank you. Um, you probably see it in my eyes that I was like, help me.

Clark 12:55

And I was like, I'll give her a second to I'm not gonna jump in right away.

Vanessa 12:59

Right, right, right.

Clark 12:59

But she was like, it's gone. Whatever it was, I was ask, it's gone.

Vanessa 13:04

Did they know that it was our first, your first interview, or did you tell them or no?

Sunny 13:07

I made the decision not to tell them until after.

Vanessa 13:09

Oh, okay. That's that's a good idea.

Sunny 13:11

But I was like, you can probably tell. But this is our first interview, so thank you for being our official first interview. I think he said, Oh, you guys did a great job. I was like, so did

Bob Moses interview highlights

Sunny 13:20

you obviously kidding,

Clark 13:24

but it's that's like when your uh Uber driver is like, have a safe flight when they drop off at airport, and you're like, you too.

Vanessa 13:30

Ed does that on purpose. He like wants people to say that to him so he can be like, you too.

Sunny 13:35

That is so funny.

Clark 13:36

So perfect.

Sunny 13:37

Okay, well, please enjoy some highlights from our interview with Bob Moses. Welcome to Festies podcast. We are here with Tom and Jimmy, otherwise known as Bob Moses. Thanks for being here with us, guys.

Tom 13:50

Thanks for having us.

Sunny 13:51

Yeah, super excited. I just have to start off by telling you that um my co-host Vanessa, who couldn't be here, she's seen you at Coachella, um, outside lands, red rocks. I saw you guys at Stern Grove last year. So to be here with you is like surreal for us.

Tom 14:04

Awesome thank you. Stern Grove. We were trying to remember what it was called.

Jimmy 14:07

We were walking around San Francisco yesterday and we're like, man, remember we played that awesome festival in that park it was sick and we were like grove, but that's it. Thank you,

Tom 14:14

Stern Grove

Sunny 14:14

Yeah that place is amazing, we love it.

Jimmy 14:14

We're sad to not see Vanessa, and we're happy she's such a big fan you know?

Sunny 14:14

I know, we're so sad too

Jimmy 14:19

Send her our love

Sunny 14:20

Well, yeah. You guys played the um Great American music hall last night?

Tom 14:24

We did it two nights ago Thursday.

Sunny 14:26

Oh Thursday. How was it?

Tom 14:28

Rad. It was over a year since our last time we played with our band, so we wanted to um have a little sort of fun warm-up, small intimate show. And um that venue is great. We've never been there before, but it was super fun.

Jimmy 14:40

Like all the ornate, like how they've done the balconies. Such a cool place to have a gig.

Sunny 14:46

It's so pretty. Festie's we're all about music festivals, so I'm kind of curious. What's the difference in your prep for something like the Great American Music Hall and then something like this?

Tom 14:55

It's very similar, but like I think the nice thing about an intimate show is you can kind of just be a bit more free with stuff. It's more like you're in your in in somebody's living room playing a little bit of show, you know? Whereas this is like the big production, the full visuals, it's more of like a performance in that way. Um, and you know, because it's a festival and there's a schedule that you kinda gotta like stick to the timing. But I think that the little show is a great warm-up for the big show because it's almost like the the the little intimate show is more nerve-wracking because everybody's right there in front of you. With the big show, you can kind of just like put on your rockstar hat and do the big thing, and it's like it's awesome. Both are awesome, but if you can get into the little show and feel comfortable, then the big show will hopefully be easy knock on wood

Jimmy 15:41

And the best thing about this is that once you're doing we can go to Despacio and dance. D

Sunny 15:46

Yeah, we're excited for that too they're like spinning the vinyl.

Jimmy 15:48

Yeah,

Sunny 15:49

yeah. And I noticed that you guys were on the first lineup that personal lineup ever had.

Tom 15:53

Yeah, I would say this is my dream festival lineup. There's like the rock and roll aspect of dance music is what we kind of love, and I feel like this festival does that so perfectly.

Jimmy 16:03

Yeah. they bring in like the indie dance, they also bring like the cutting-edge new stuff that's happening. It's like a really good mix of like helping bring new talent and showing them in the Bay Area, but then also getting like staples like L C D sound system and like Christina Aguilera

Tom 16:19

yeah Legends.

Jimmy 16:20

Pretty awesome.

Sunny 16:21

Um, let's see. What was my last question I was gonna ask you guys? Um, so your new album Blink is about to come out.

Tom 16:27

Yes.

Sunny 16:27

And um, I want to hear from you guys what would be the best setting to listen to it to for the first time? Like, should I be like on the beach? Should I be driving in my car?

Tom 16:37

Car would be good. Driving in a car is a great way to listen in an album.

Jimmy 16:40

Driving a car, but you gotta find that like dawn, sunset, the day and the night, uh the moment, you know?

Sunny 16:48

Okay, okay.

Tom 16:49

Either driving or just somewhere beautiful at sunset and listen to it.

Sunny 16:51

Somewhere pretty.

Tom 16:52

I think that's a good way to do it.

Sunny 16:53

Are we gonna get to hear anything tonight?

Tom 16:55

Yeah, we're playing a bunch of new songs off it, and um some you know, Thursday night on our show was the first the first time we played a few of them, and it was super good, so we're stoked to play them at this beautiful festival.

Sunny 17:06

And uh well, last thing, do you guys have a um festival tip for surviving festivals? Whether people's an attendee or an artist playing.

Tom 17:15

Well, we're Canadian and we're very pale, so bring sunscreen.

Jimmy 17:20

Good pair of shoes and some earplugs, sunscreen, you're good to go.

Sunny 17:22

Yep.

Tom 17:23

A little lip balm, you know?

Sunny 17:24

Perfect.

Clark 17:25

Ay All right, we back.

Vanessa 17:30

Okay, Sunny, that was so good. You did so good. Also, my jaw is was literally on the floor when you they said my name.

Sunny 17:39

I know, I know.

Vanessa 17:40

I don't think I ever told you guys this, but like, remember going back to Strawgirl Coachella? Yes, Bob Moses was the set we were watching when I was like happy crying, like bawling, crying, and just like so in love with me and all my friends. Like it was to Bob Moses' set. And so, yeah, I mean, I yeah, I don't know. The fact that they were like, they said my name and they're like send her our love. I was like, oh my god. But no, you did so good. Those questions were great.

Sunny 18:11

That's why when uh Clark uploaded it, I was like, no, I don't want her to watch it,

Vanessa 18:14

and I didn't, I really didn't. I was like, I'm not going to.

Sunny 18:17

Good job.

Clark 18:18

Good on you with the self-restraint.

Processing the interview and set

Vanessa 18:20

I know, I really wanted to. I was like, oh my god.

Sunny 18:22

Thank you again to Bob Moses for taking the time to meet with us. That was very exciting for us.

Clark 18:27

Yeah, thank you to them, and thank you to their manager, Geoff, for coordinating with us.

Vanessa 18:33

Yeah, and just for being so nice and putting her at ease because this is our first interview, like we said.

Clark 18:38

So seriously, I was I was like, did y'all see our questions before somehow?

Sunny 18:43

professionals.

Vanessa 18:43

They're just professionals.

Clark 18:44

Yo, yeah, seriously, it was awesome, you know. Especially that answer they gave on Sunny's question about preparation for different, you know, venues and stuff. It was cool seeing their set after that, having this more in-depth perspective. Cause yeah, they opened with one of the singles off of the new album, and then right after went into one of their most well-known songs.

Sunny 19:08

The one you posted,

Vanessa 19:09

Tearin' me up?

Clark 19:09

Yeah, yeah.

Vanessa 19:10

And I know you're cringing, Sunny, because you felt like you said yeah too many times, but it was like a podcast interview, it was meant to be more like a conversation, just learn learning experience. But I don't think that it sounds bad, it's a conversation.

Sunny 19:23

Ok thanks. Yeah, I mean, I think this yeah thing is a problem, even with the just us.

Vanessa 19:27

Yeah,

Sunny 19:28

yeah. It's like they're not necessary.

Vanessa 19:30

If you don't have something important to say, don't fucking talk about it.

Sunny 19:33

Don't say it at all.

Vanessa 19:35

Whatever.

Sunny 19:36

Yeah,

Vanessa 19:36

yeah. Um, we're not allowed to say yeah anymore.

Clark 19:39

You have to say yes,

Vanessa 19:40

yes.

Sunny 19:40

Get a swear jar, a yeah jar

Clark 19:43

I think it was also cool uh at Portola was they were doing a live set, you know, they're playing live keyboard and they had a drummer and a bass player and playing live guitar and singing. They were doing what they said in the interview.

Vanessa 19:56

Yeah.

Clark 19:57

Where rock meets dance music, and that's what they love about music.

Sunny 20:03

Yeah, check that off the list of firsts.

Clark 20:06

Yeah.

Vanessa 20:07

Milestones.

Clark 20:08

Oh, um, I think LCD Sound System is the only little thing we didn't talk about.

Vanessa 20:13

I love them.

Clark 20:14

Weird mixture, yeah, and and kind of a perfect band for what Portola does well with this rock meets the dance music, because that's their whole thing. And then we saw uh a bit of Chemical Brothers. So that was our Saturday.

Sunny 20:27

That was Saturday.

Vanessa 20:28

All right, who'd you guys see on Sunday?

Clark 20:30

Um Haute and Freddy, Horse Meat Disco, Noga Erez, Maribou State, The Rapture, Um, Underworld, Moby, Dom Dolla, and then The Prodigy.

Sunny 20:40

Started off with Hawte and Freddy. They're so unique.

Clark 20:43

Yeah. And they're this duo that is doing like 80s feeling synthie pop music.

Sunny 20:52

Yeah.

Clark 20:52

But their look is super cool. They look like they're coming straight out of like Rocky horror mixed with a Renaissance fair.

Sunday discoveries and Despacio tent

Sunny 21:00

Yeah.

Clark 21:00

They just released a single, so they were super hyped about that. So the energy and everything for their performance was super up there.

Sunny 21:08

Yeah, the crowd was pumped. Her performance style was just very captivating.

Clark 21:12

Yeah.

Sunny 21:13

And shout out to our festie Megan, who we met up with, and uh she was dancing and we were dancing, it was a good time.

Clark 21:21

Um, and we also did spend a little bit of time in the despacio uh tent.

Sunny 21:25

Yes.

Vanessa 21:26

So what was that despacio tent?

Sunny 21:28

It was a tent kind of on the far back corner and they were spinning vinyl all day. Yeah.

Clark 21:34

And then they had a huge disco ball in the middle.

Sunny 21:38

The fog was intense. Yeah. Like you couldn't see the ceiling.

Clark 21:43

When they weren't putting lights on the disco ball and doing the full light array, yeah, you can see three feet in front of you.

Sunny 21:49

But yeah, Sunday was more so of our day where we ran around interviewing people, we got our little montage video, our one-word answers.

Vanessa 21:57

What was the question you asked?

Sunny 21:59

We asked, what is one word to describe Portola?

Vanessa 22:01

Did you get some good answers?

Sunny 22:03

Yeah, we did.

Clark 22:04

Yeah, stay posted for that video.

Vanessa 22:07

What was the highlight of Sunday?

Vanessa 22:09

Noga Erez.

Clark 22:10

Yeah, yeah, this Israeli rapper. Oh total mixture of singing and like straight up flow rapping.

Vanessa 22:17

Wow.

Clark 22:18

Just blew us away.

Sunny 22:19

Everyone in the crowd was going.

Clark 22:20

Yeah, it really just got the whole crowd going. It was it was uh really

Sunny 22:25

I think the word you're looking for is lit.

Clark 22:27

It was lit.

Vanessa 22:28

It 's lit!

Clark 22:28

It was lit.

Vanessa 22:31

Who else? Moby.

Sunny 22:32

Moby is like a pioneer in electronic music. I think he's responsible for bringing electronic music to the mainstream in like the 90s.

Vanessa 22:39

Oh really?

Sunny 22:40

Yeah. So being able to see him, it was definitely a uh it was like an aura around him.

Clark 22:45

Yeah.

Sunny 22:45

And then they had a lot of congas and hand drums, so it was kind of like tribal sounding.

Clark 22:50

You know, and he was playing guitar and he was also playing congas and bongos too.

Sunny 22:54

Yeah, he was inspirational too.

Clark 22:55

Yeah. Yeah, there was that warmth coming from it. And then we left to go check out Dom Dolla.

Vanessa 23:03

I've always wanted to see Dom Dollaa.

Sunny 23:05

Yeah, it was fun.

Clark 23:06

Yeah, he played an incredible set too.

Sunny 23:08

I saw videos later that he played September.

Vanessa 23:10

He did.

Sunny 23:11

And we were not there.

Vanessa 23:12

Oh no.

Sunny 23:12

We were in Despasio, I think.

Clark 23:14

On his socials, he was like, I think this is the first time I've remembered to play this on this date. And we saw a little bit of the prodigy too.

Sunny 23:22

Oh, we did, yeah.

Clark 23:23

Uh there are UK almost like heavy metal dance music, you know, like mosh pits and stuff, uh kind of music.

Vanessa 23:30

Do you have any tips for people going next year?

Sunny 23:33

Yeah, I would recommend just having a way home or being prepared to like wait it out or leave early.

Clark 23:39

Look into the shuttles. They had shuttles to BART stations and stuff.

Sunny 23:43

And shuttles to the mission.

Clark 23:44

Yes.

Vanessa 23:45

Um, okay, who would you recommend this festival to?

Sunny 23:50

I would recommend Portola if you love the like warehouse rave underground scene. And then if you're down for like a city vibe. But I wouldn't recommend Portola

Tips, who should go, and concrete reality

Sunny 24:00

if you're not comfortable in high dance, uh high energy dance floors. Slash if you like a festival that has a lot of places to take a break.

Vanessa 24:06

Oh, yeah, because it's all concrete, huh?

Sunny 24:08

Yeah. There's not like a lot of lounging areas.

Vanessa 24:11

I really want to go next year. I literally have had tickets to this festival like two years in a row and I've had to sell them. So I want to make it to this festival at some point.

Clark 24:21

Yeah.

Vanessa 24:21

Maybe next year. Yay, Portola. Big thanks to Portola for allowing Festies to be a part of their media. Big thanks to Bob Moses and all of their team for uh allowing us to interview them, being our first artist interview.

Sunny 24:35

Yeah.

Vanessa 24:36

And uh big thanks to us. We hit your goal of 500 followers on Instagram. And the year's not even over. I still think we can get to a thousand before the end of the year.

Sunny 24:47

Let's do it.

Vanessa 24:48

Good job, Festies. We're doing something.

Sunny 24:51

Stay tuned for Austin City Limits content.

Vanessa 24:55

And make sure to check out our Portola content on our Instagram. We've

Gratitude, goals, and where to follow

Vanessa 25:00

got some videos, so go check those out. Make sure you're following us on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube at Festies Podcast. And please leave us a rating and review wherever you listen to your podcasts, and we'll talk to you on the next one.

Clark 25:12

Bye

Vanessa 25:13

Bye.

Sunny 25:14

Bye.